The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [329]
There was no doubt that today she would rake in more money than ever before. She had twice as much to sell, and wool prices were up. She planned to buy Philip’s output a year in advance again, and she had a secret scheme to build herself a stone house, with spacious cellars for storage of wool, an elegant and comfortable hall, and a pretty upstairs bedroom just for herself. Her future was secure, and she was confident of being able to support Richard as long as he needed her. Everything was perfect.
That was why it was so strange that she was completely and utterly miserable.
It was four years, almost to the day, since Ellen had returned to Kingsbridge, and they had been the best four years of Tom’s life.
The pain of Agnes’s death had dulled to an ache. It was still with him, but he no longer got that embarrassing feeling that he was about to burst into tears every now and again for no apparent reason. He still held imaginary conversations with her, in which he told her about the children, and Prior Philip, and the cathedral; but the conversations were less frequent. The bittersweet memory of her had not blighted his love for Ellen. He was able to live in the present. Seeing Ellen and touching her, talking to her and sleeping with her were daily joys.
He had been deeply wounded, on the day of the fight between Jack and Alfred, by Jack’s saying that Tom had never looked after him; and that accusation had overshadowed even the appalling revelation that Jack had set fire to the old cathedral. He had agonized over it for several weeks, but in the end he had decided that Jack was wrong. Tom had done his best, and no man could do any more. Having reached that conclusion he had stopped worrying.
Building Kingsbridge Cathedral was the most profoundly satisfying work he had ever done. He was responsible for the design and the execution. No one interfered with him, and there was no one else to blame if things went wrong. As the mighty walls rose, with their rhythmic arches, their graceful moldings, and their individual carvings, he could look around and think: I did all this, and I did it well.
His nightmare, that one day he would again find himself on the road with no work, no money and no way of feeding his children, seemed very far away, now that there was a stout money chest full to bursting with silver pennies buried under the straw in his kitchen. He still shuddered when he remembered that cold, cold night when Agnes had given birth to Jonathan and died; but he felt sure nothing that bad would ever happen again.
He sometimes wondered why Ellen and he had not had children. They had both been proved fertile in the past, and there was no shortage of opportunities for her to get pregnant—they still made love almost every night, even after four years. However, it was not a cause of deep regret to him. Little Jonathan was the apple of his eye.
He knew, from past experience, that the best way to enjoy a fair was with a small child, so he sought Jonathan out around midmorning, when the crowds began to arrive. Jonathan was almost an attraction in his own right, dressed as he was in his miniature habit. He had lately conceived a desire to have his head shaved, and Philip had indulged him—Philip was as fond of the child as Tom was—with the result that he looked more than ever like a tiny little monk. There were several real midgets in the crowd, performing tricks and begging, and they fascinated Jonathan. Tom had to hurry him away from one who drew a crowd by exposing his full-size penis. There were jugglers, acrobats and musicians performing and passing a hat round; soothsayers and surgeons and whores touting for business; trials of strength, wrestling contests and games of chance. People were wearing their most colorful clothes, and those who could afford it had doused themselves with scent and oiled their hair. Everyone seemed to have money to spend, and the air was full